Annabeth had a plan
by Buscathe
Summary: "Athena always has a plan" and Annabeth is a really close competitor for that statement. This is a collection of times that Annabeth Chase's plans went really well, really "meh" or so bad that she honored her mom's mascot and just winged it./There would be some Percabeth in future chapters, but not now.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi, guys!**

**Just a heads up: English isn't my first language. Sorry in advance for the bad grammar.**

**Thanks for clicking in the story, by the way & I accept reviews for my ego to grow and criticism to keep it sane.**

Annabeth had a plan.

It was rather simple and straight to the point, nothing flashy or the like. Perfect for the situation at hand.

She would grab her school bag from the kitchen table (which was already full of food and drinks, and with a pair of spare clothes that would come in handy) and then, Annabeth would walk past her father in the living room and then up and out through the front door to the unknown streets of Virginia.

You would be thinking if the plan's to run away, why show your intentions so out in the open? And the reason was simple, as simple as the plan indeed.

Annabeth didn't want to run away.

No. She wanted to show her father that she was considering it, that it was an option, and that she knew what she was doing and that she was going to do it If the situation didn't change. If _he _didn't change.

Why leave your bag in a place where all the family members have access if it's not but for them to pick it up and see inside. Why walk right in front of them if it's not for them to question you. Why leave through the front door if the backdoor would have better results. Why leave at Five P.M at all. Annabeth was not stupid. Her mother was the greek goddess of wisdom and battle strategy, her father had said so (and Annabeth knew he was telling the truth, she didn't know how but she could tell that the information was as true as Shakespeare was hard to read) an Annabeth was gonna make her proud.

So the newly seven year old girl began putting her plan in motion.

She went straight into the kitchen and saw her backpack not in the kitchen table but in the floor under the hanging hooks. Obviously, her stepmother's work. Annabeth sighed at that fact and reached for it with a frown on her pretty little face. She knew there was a chance that Helen had reached for the backpack first. And knowing her she wouldn't have had the curiosity to see inside, not like her father, nope. But it was okay, the plan could work even with this little detail a secret. The backpack was so full that it seemed ready to explode, that alone would make him curious enough.

She proceeded to the door that separated her from her objective. Before anything, she decided to take a breath.

This was it.

...This was _really_ it.

No more neglect. No more forgotten birthdays, no more forgotten presentations or practices or judo matches, no more forgotten daughters.

No more forgotten promises.

No more bad stepmothers that act sweet just to make you go away and off to your room, no more stepmothers that don't let you play with their children because -even if she doesn't says it- thinks that you are a danger to them or to their marriage or something else like that, no more stepmothers that don't understand that you have dyslexia and ADHD and that's what makes school a pain and why the professors always ask for meetings (that Annabeth knows she doesn't attend).

No more stepmothers that bake cookies but don't let you eat them.

No more stepmothers that tell you to shup up because "the spiders aren't real, _Annie_, stop with all this nonsense". Even though you know they are real and you know for sure they'll gonna come back.

No more dads that stay silent.

No more dads that look the other way when she needs help.

No more.

_No more_.

It had been enough.

It was time for it to change.

With a last exercise of 'inhale and exhale' Annabeth cross to the living room, where all her family was present.

There they were, her stepmother, her dad and her little two-year-olds half twin brothers.

_This was it._

They were playing. It was not a strange occurrence. It was not strange that Annabeth wasn't invited, either. That was why she decided that time of day to put her plan to work, she was sure all of them will be there. But now that she saw them… they were so _engrossed_ in it that the little blond had to take a pause. And see it.

They were truly happy. All of them smiling. Her half brothers giggling here and there, sitting in front of the couch and on the floor, her father making sounds as he plays with a plane toy, her stepmother narrating the hero's story. It was precious. It was a pain not being able to participate.

It took Annabeth two seconds to remember what she was there to do. It took five more for her to gain the courage to walk again, but she did.

Annabeth was no coward.

And even if the living room seemed larger at that very moment, she crossed it.

She walked and walked and walked but not even one of them looked in her direction. Not even when she was directly in front of them. Or better said behind them, across the couch. That's when she began to slow down. Maybe they didn't hear her. The television was on, and loud. Maybe that was it.

Annabeth resumed her pace, this time her footsteps stomping harder into the ground. But it didn't even face them. They didn't hear.

And soon, so much sooner that she anticipated, she was at the front door of the house.

Her grey eyes never left them. They were glued to the happy family that… that she wasn't part of.

She reached for the door handle and opened, it shrieked and Annabeth was suddenly so much surprised by the happiness that passed through her. She only had eyes for her father then, seeing, hoping, that he would looked up and see her, his first and only daughter at the door with a backpack so full that it seemed it would explode and eyes full of determination and… and…

...he didn't.

He didn't looked up.

He kept playing.

For his two little baby boys.

Annabeth felt rage. How could it be. It was a safe foolproof plan. It was simple. It was supposed to work. He was suppose to see her trying to leave, stop her, she would explain her reasons (her father was reasonable) and they would try better; if it by the end things didn't worked out she would leave, she didn't have a problem leaving if they at least tried it. But there wasn't a possibility now, because he didn't look up.

Her plan failed.

Why? Because he didn't look up.

Why? She didn't kno-

Then it downs on her.

It _failed_ because she forgot one key factor in this whole situation: to look up, he needed to _care._

And he didn't.

Not for a long time.

Not since _before_ meeting Helen. Not really.

And it hurts.

"The truth hurts." She had read it, know she understood it.

She had put all her faith in that even in a little and forgotten compartment of his heart he cared for her. She had put faith in her father's love for her. She had put faith in something that didn't exist. What a fool.

She was really a fool.

But she would be a greater fool if she didn't do something about it.

But what could she do? _Leave?_

It was an absurd thought, but-

Annabeth separated her eyes from her father's figure and looked at the door. And past it. It was Five P.M. The sun was still up and bright. The wind flew by, she could see it. She also could see a leaf, flying by, free, alone but in an adventure of its own.

Annabeth's grey stormy eyes looked back inside the house. To the photographs. They were many. But not many of her. It didn't really mean anything, right? Even if there was proof that she existed in this house, she had proved that she was invisible to them. To _him_.

Annabeth shakes her head. She's conscious of her backpack, full, ready.

She is ready.

She had been ready for a long time, really.

Annabeth crosses the door and closes it behind her. She's about to go when her dog reaches her. He licks her and she pets him. That's when she realizes it's gonna be the last time she sees him. Rowley it's old nowadays and she probably will never come back.

She plays with him one last time. The only member on her family that she would permit herself to miss. They play until the sun is no longer there, and Annabeth grimaces. She reaches for bread in her backpack and when she goes to give it to him, he's gone.

An owl makes itself present in replacement. It's beautiful with its chocolate brown feathers and grey mystical eyes. It looks at Annabeth from her house's apple tree and Annabeth looks back. It's hypnotic. And the owl smiles at her (or the most likely smile an owl can make).

Suddenly Rowley is back, but with a surprise. A hammer. From her father's utility box in the now open garage. When did it open? He lays it in front of Annabeth's feet and she looks at it and then at him before taking it in her hands. She balances it, readying herself to throw it but a bark from Rowley stops her. She looks back at him but he only lays there.

A hoot calls for her attention and Annabeth locks eyes with the owl again, hammer in hand.

The owl moves its head and, somehow, Annabeth understands what it's trying to say:

"It's time to go."

And then it disappears in front of her, like magic.

And Annabeth realizes something right then and there: maybe the Chase don't see her, maybe to them she's invisible, but that it's not the only family that Annabeth has.

The owl reappears, three trees at Annabeth's right. And Annabeth follows it.

And maybe, just maybe, she would make this new family see her, and maybe (_just_ maybe) they would _see_ her.

**So... Annabeth has always been my favorite character from PJO. Never have I doubt it. And it seemed time for me to write about her. It has been, what? 8 years? Yeah... I think so.**

**This is the first thing I wrote that's completely finished in a really ****_long _****time, so I'm kinda rusty. I need to oil my machine, or whatever. So if you have any writing criticism, I'm all ears. But even if it turns out it's trash I'm proud of it.**

**Oh, by the way: if you go back to TLT it's canon that Baby Annabeth had a good dogo and I'm all here for it. I chose his name, because... why not? (And for all I know nobody has an idea of what's the stepmother's name, but a popular fanon ****_is _****Hele so I used it without a single drop of remorse)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi, guys! How has been the week treating you?**

**I'm fine, and Annabeth is ****_goode_**** too. (Sorry, I had to do it)**

**.**

**I totally forgot this was a thing but not anymore. Here we go: I'm not the owner of the Percy Jackson series (neither of the Kane Chronicles, the Heros of Olympus, the Trials of Apollo or even Magnus Chase) no matter how much I would like it. So I'm gonna leave you guys with the chapter while I cry in the distance.**

Annabeth's first encounter with a monster didn't go smoothly at all.

In her defense, she didn't know monsters existed in today's day and age. She had read a lot of myths, yes -even if it was an hard and slow progress (with her dyslexia and ADHD) she had read a good amount of the short ones-, but in those myths the hero normally ended up slaying it.

How was Annabeth supposed to know they were still kicking around? In the USA? In _Virginia_? The newly seven-year-old girl wasn't happy at all with this new information.

It was pure dumb luck she had a hammer at hand (thanks, mom) when the serpents went at her again.

Yes. _Serpents_.

Plural.

And ugly ones too for that matter. With their big red 'n yellow eyes, their long_ish_ thick bodies and that flesh crown thingy at the base of what could have been their neck.

Ugh. Disgusting.

Annabeth swung her hammer horizontally, to keep the beasts at bay from her, but she knew that she needed a plan. And fast. Her life depended on it.

And that was freaking scary.

Because there was no room for mistakes.

So that only let her with the homework of reasserting all what she knew about her opponents at that very moment to figure out how to take them down. Her spine shivered in fear and anticipation. Fear mostly because the possibility of failing (and the repercussion to all mistakes right about now: _death_) because the chance that she did fail were huge... and anticipation for the sheer opportunity to fight and outsmart 'em. But to be honest the blonde felt mostly fear. If Annabeth could fool herself that this one was another judo match back at _Jack's Dojo_, she would survive to tell the tale. It was a good thing, then, that the reptiles already smelled like the sweaty thirteen-year-olds's socks _someone_ abandoned in the locker room regularly.

Really weirdly good, indeed. She never thought that she would be happy thinking about Tommy Sanderson. Ever. In her entire life.

This whole demigod ordeal wasn't what Annabeth imagined it.

At all.

_Hissss!_

One of the serpents had jumped at the opportunity to land its fangs on the apparent disoriented kid's arm but her reflex were faster than its tiny body in the air and her hammer smashed it out of the sky and into the ground. Its brothers hissed back at her as Annabeth watched the little serpent slithered itself back behind its family.

So, her opponents, _right_.

Annabeth hadn't forgotten about them.

She didn't know their names or a lot, really, but she knew enough.

First, they were babies. Annabeth was sure about that. Her grey eyes moved to her hammer and grimaced. The flat surface of steel instead of being perfectly smooth was rotting, melting, in a black hissing mess. Annabeth was sure that this fellas were babies 'cause what kind of mythology monster with poisonous capabilities couldn't just vaporize the entire freaking thing in one go?

Second, their fangs. If their skin in itself was poisonous enough to rot steel then Annabeth had to be very careful with their fangs. They were long, pointy and yellow. Their parents surely didn't make a big scene for them to keep up with their hygiene. But that _didn't matter in the moment, Annabeth_.

And, lastly, they breathed freakin' fire. Oh, yeah, they sure did. And they liked to remind her that fact about every opportunity they've got. Wich was… about _now!_

Annabeth jumped left as fast as she saw them open up their mouths'. She didn't need to see how it light up again. One time was good enough to burn her favorite shirt. As she landed, Annabeth caught sight of the friendly owl perching in the second windowsill of the first floor of the department building right in front of her. It was looking down at her, wacthing, waiting for her to come out of this little fight alive with the intention of continuing this plan of them to keep moving forward to wherever it wanted her to go. And as Annabeth ran, she remembered how that little birdie save her life.

It wasn't a long time ago but now it felt like it.

Annabeth had been walking for a while, following the brown majestic owl when the hunger hit her hard. The blonde -knowing the food she packed wouldn't last her forever- had been rationing. Sure, it was the full second day on the run (third if you counted the Scape Day) it was insane thinking so far ahead… but, well, better safe than sorry, right? Whatever. That was not the point. The point was that she was hungry.

"I'm gonna eat now." She said to the bird. Maybe it was weird for the people nearby in Vinyard Park West, Vinton (Virginia), that heard her. But she didn't really care. She was _that_ hungry. And she was a kid, adults nevermided weirdness in youngins (although in other adults it was another tale), they would overlook her. Annabeth had to remind herself that being overlook was a good thing right now. The painful heavy heartbeats were still there tho.

She ate five delicious _bagel bites_, a small bread roll and was beginning eatting an apple when the owl dived to the ground.

It was a strange feeling, you know, owing your life to an animal. Nevertheless Annabeth also got the feeling weirder things were gonna happen to her the longer she kept herself alive, she only had to survive today to see it tomorrow, she was sure of it. But right then, owing you life to a bird… it was weird enough.

The majestic brown owl had dived right at her, fast. First, Annabeth thought it wanted the apple. Then she remembered that owls were carnivores so it didn't make any sense. Then the owl reached her.

Or, better said, reached _it._

One of the serpents (probably the one in charge because of its larger dimensions -no outstandingly so to be the parent, but enough to be the older sibling) had sneaked into her improvised picnic and was about to take a bite out of her right foot (Annabeth was hungry and _tired_ because of the walking, so she had had the grandiose idea to peel off her sneakers and splash around the Glade Greek for confort) when the owl snatched it. The majestic brown bird of prey closed its white beak around the serpent's … eh, _neck_, and poof! Golden dust flew into the wind. It smiled, just like the first day they met (and about every other time Annabeth had asked a question in their journey -no matter how random it was). Then, out of nowhere, it cried out of pain. Loudly. And Annabeth -who had jumped to her feet by that moment- was ready to help but soon realized she had problems of her own.

Ten more serpents were making their way to her, in various stages of success.

And that's when the world decided to slow down.

It happend all the time to Annabeth. In a match, in school, in the market. It was simple and complicated to explain at the same time. All in all, she had reached the conclusion after all this time it wasn't the world that slowed down around her but that her thoughts were _so_ _fast_ every other thing seemed to move at a sluggish pace when she entered her train station of thoughts. The doctors said it was fault of her ADHD ("Nothing fancy, sweety. Sorry to break it to you") and, _yes,_ it was a big reason for it to happened; nevertheless Annabeth knew there was no way only that was involved. Everything could and did distract her, yes, and the hyperactivity -either of her mind or body- was no doubted either (she had a lot of fights with teachers to prove it was true) but those so many thoughts in so little _time..._

They were a lot. Some of them were insignificant (just little snippets here and there that she recognized passing through her mind throughout the day that she didn't really care to follow in its entirety: like, for example, that guy at the end of the street in front of the park, right in front of Annabeth eyes -in the blue jeans and black Guns 'N Roses t-shirt, laid back waiting for a friend- was in his fourth cigarette and counting. Annabeth didn't lose the fact that he relied all his body weight in his left leg, either, or that when he moved to let an old lady pass, he grimaced hard, proving the half-baked theory the little seven year old had about his knee pain. And, also, providing her the strategy to take him down in a fight if he ever tried anything against her: he was a fast smoker, wich meant slower and harder breaths, wich meant she could outrun him even without the knee pain taking spotlight, and, even if he caught her, a good kick would do the trick -either the knee or the genitalia, both worked well in this place-, and, finally, a flying kick in the head would knock him out for the count. Annabeth knew the last bit was a little too much, but, hey, it would be so awesome and she wanted to practice her kicks -because in Judo you really didn't do it and _Annabeth, you need to __**shut it.**_) And some of them could really help.

For example, the fact that the little serpents making their way to her had a hard time going against higher ground. It made them seemed slower than they already appeared. It was _perfect_.

She had used this ability a lot of times in her short lived life to change things in her favor. It had prove its worth. It better sure do the same _now_.

Annabeth looked at her surroundings. There were five streets. Five options. All valuables but only one could be chosen. In the limits of her vision she saw the owl disappear; Annabeth gulped and preyed for it to be safe before returning the focus of her mind in the matters at hand.

Option One was pretty leveled. It wouldn't help her in this situation. It just would maintain the same conflicts of the beginning, of the now, with the reptiles advancing, and Annabeth wasn't sure she could outrun them, all ten, for the count.

Option Two, sadly, was just the same as its predecessor.

Option Three was bad. The street was inclined down in a twenty degree angle for what Annabeth could see. And, yes, maybe it wasn't much, theoretically speaking, but in the long run something so small could till the balance in the end. So no. Not that one. Definitely.

Option Four was inclined up, wich was great. And in a thirty-five degree angle from her point to the top far ahead. That was what made her uncomfortable. What if she couldn't make it?

Option Five was inclined up too, the more the merrier, right? And in a thirty degree angle this time, even better. Nevertheless, Annabeth didn't see a great amount of architecture there, wich meant less people could get hurt (definitely a good thing) but also that she wouldn't have a good amount of places to distract and lose her opponents.

So, against her initial fear of failing, Annabeth ran directly to Option Four, and dammed the consequences. As soon as her decision was made, the world went back to it's normal speed with the monsters advancing at a faster pace.

To the normal eye it may have been a decision done in less than ten seconds but people will soon learn that when Annabeth Chase had an idea it was better follow it.

Flashforward that and you encounter yourself back again in the present were the blonde girl just jumped and ran away from the last firethrow from the weird looking serpents. The owl, that had rejoined the fight as soon as Annabeth reached the first school she saw and who the girl was happy to see again, kept looking at her, waiting.

_Poisonous_.

The serpents were poisonous.

Not just their fangs but, _also_, their scales. Alright. And maybe they weren't powerful enough with that capability yet but her hammer was still somewhat disfigured by the two times she used it against them. Wich was enough.

Annabeth couldn't used it again. If the monsters were real and all of them were alive (and in the _States_ -wich she hoped not) then Annabeth needed a weapon. It couldn't get dissolve in her first encounter with them, no matter how much she wanted to smashed this ones like in a game of Whac-a-Mole in the Arcade.

She needed a plan. And fast.

What else she knew about her opponents? You could either chop them off existence or smashed 'em into golden powder. Great. Very enlightening.

_Woosh!_

Annabeth crouched.

They _also _breathed fire. _How could she keep __**forgetting**_ _that?_

The little girl began to search for something that could help. Anything, really. And as her mind was attentive to everything that could get her out off this circumstance, the world slowed down again. _Cars? _She thought, watching some of them advance in the streets. But then she dismissed it. Their wheels were made of some kind of rubber; they would explode with the poison and the people inside could get injured or even die in the repercussions (Annabeth could also get injured and/or even die in the repercussions too if she couldn't evade the car when it hit the reptiles), that made the whole thing messed up. _Entering a supermarket and spect that the sliding doors chop them off?_ She thought again, looking at her right. Never gonna happen; first, the doors weren't made of strong materials, they wouldn't do anything in her favor, second, there were inocent people in the supermarket (and for the record, if Annabeth didn't know that the Gods and Goddesses were real, she would have thought that she have became insane, because nobody except her seemed to notice the freakin' dammed serpents!), if the serpents got in -wich they would if the first point didn't make it obvious- then all that people would be in danger. _An open garage?_ Like _that_ would even exist in Virgin-

It does.

Annabeth runs in its direction, the poisonous serpents right at her heels, the owl over them, in the sky, viewing everything.

_Max's Repair Shop_ was open to the public. It was a short building divided into two portions: the repair shop/garage and a cafe attached by a couple of windows were people that had the time could wait while relaxing. But none of it mattered to the seven-year-old girl. Nope.

The only thing that mattered was the metal door high up in the ceiling of that shop.

Oh, Max was gonna be her bestfriend from now on.

As soon as she enter, she heard the yelling of a working man. Annabeth didn't care at the moment (and she supposed she never really will). _This was it_.

Calculating the distance of her enemies and their velocity with the weight of the metal sheet of a door this garage had and proving the working functionality of the pulley system, Annabeth had a good idea of _when _to shut it. But it needed it to be _perfect_ and the yelling man could ruin that.

So Annabeth elevated her eyes to the sky, to the owl resting in a nearby tree, and locking gazes asked:

"Can you take care of him?"

It shouldn't surprised her that it heard her or that it listened to her petition and answer positively, not with the feeling that Annabeth knew what it was (or better said, _who_), but, nevertheless, it did. And as the majestic brown owl distracted the now screaming man (and his new companions), the little blonde girl let the metal sheet fall onto the heads, necks and bodies of her first ever monsters.

And she _slayed_ them.

Like Heracles.

Like Achilles.

Like Odysseus.

And as she escaped through the windows of the cafe with the owl (who was maybe, if the world was crazy, _her mother_) as her companion, Annabeth couldn't contain the smile that appeared in her lips. She was doing it. She had began making them remember her.

**If you are curious, the monsters that Annabeth fought are basilisks (the Percy Jackson version, at least -and their first appearance was in the Son Of Neptune)**

**Tell me what your thoughts are with the story in the comments, plz. As I said in the first chapter English is not my first language and I'm trying to get back in to writing again, all the criticism is going to help.**

**Thanks again.**

**Bye!**


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